The co-founder of Flutterwave, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, in the first part of the exclusive interview with Financialtechnology and eMagineTV, shared his thoughts on the role fintech. Excerpts:

Why did you quit your first love, Edutech? Were you overwhelmed with the challenges of running Andela?

I have always been in the education industry. I started out eight years ago building technology solutions. While I was in Andela, I gradually began to understand that talent is not enough. The model for monetizing software in Nigeria simply bore down to two things: it is either you find an employer who is going to pay you, or you build a series of solutions that you sell. However, there is nothing like building a business out of software simply by being an engineer.

I wanted to build technology that could enable that because at the end of the day, we are talking about how technology is transforming things in Nigeria. The key to that value proposition is that there has to be an incentive for the people building technology so that they can create wealth for themselves and for their family by doing so.

Flutterwave was my way of bringing the payment and fintech ecosystem to a pure application layer. So that it becomes possible for us to have developers building big business without having multiple meeting with bank executives. The only way to do that is to share fintech infrastructure.

Those who regulate fintech are far more astute and capable than those who regulate education. They are forward thinking people. There should be more visionaries in the regulation of the education space. The Central Bank of Nigeria [CBN] sees itself as enablers not enemies of fintech. The CBN is an enabler that protects the consumers. I do not think that education regulation has the mission mindset that appears like that.

At Flutterwave, we are building a shared technology and infrastructure for the industry. We believe that closed infrastructure will not help the industry. We are building a platform for all institutions that are trying to build payment into their value chain and provide a platform that we can all innovate; build technology, and infrastructure that is safe for the consumers, the ecosystem and flexible enough for everybody to use. Read the full interview on Financial Technology here.